Julien Bloch, PhD student in the University of Washington Department of Bioengineering who works in the lab of Center for Neurotechnology faculty member Dr. Azadeh Yazdan-Shahmorad, was named the 2022 recipient of the CNT Best Paper Award for Neurotechnology Advancement. This award was established by Joseph and Anusha Fernando in 2020 to recognize and promote a technical paper authored by a CNT-affiliated student that makes identifiable contributions in neurotechnology or human-machine interaction.

Bloch’s paper, Network structure mediates functional reorganization induced by optogenetic stimulation of non-human primate sensorimotor cortex was selected as the award recipient based on its significance and potential impact, its technical content, the originality of the proposed approach and the clarity of the solutions he presented. His paper was recently published in iScience and he presented the paper at the GRC Neuroelectronic Interfaces Conference. The award provides the recipient with $1,000.